Fig. 4

Knockdown of PLOD2 inhibits the morphologic and phenotypic EMT-like changes in cervical cancer cells. a PLOD2-silenced HeLa and SiHa cells exhibited a rounded shape. Representative phase-contrast images of control and siPLOD2 cells obtained at ×200 magnification are shown. b Phalloidin staining revealed minimal pseudopods in siPLOD2 cells, whereas control cells exhibited abundant and elongated pseudopods. Morphologic changes shown by phalloidin staining are consistent with a. Representative fluorescence images of control and siPLOD2 cells are shown. Photos were captured under an oil lens (×1000). c, d Knockdown of PLOD2 resulted in a gain of E-cadherin and β-catenin and a loss of vimentin. The protein and mRNA expression levels of E-cadherin, β-catenin, and vimentin were measured by Western blotting (c) and qRT-PCR (d); α-tubulin and GAPDH were used as loading controls, respectively. “src” in c indicates the scramble group. Data shown in d are based on the mean ± SD of triplicate independent experiments. p values were obtained using Student’s t test. p < 0.05 is indicated by “**”, and p < 0.001 is indicated by “***”. e Inhibition of PLOD2 by minoxidil (0.5 mM) led to a similar change in EMT molecular markers, as demonstrated by Western blotting